These high altitude sweet potato muffins with crumb topping are made with roasted and pureed sweet potatoes, warm and cozy spices, then topped with buttery brown sugar pecan crumble. This is a bakery style sweet potato muffin recipe with big fluffy muffin tops and a moist, tender crumb.
Looking for more high altitude muffin recipes? Don’t miss these apple spice crumb muffins, almond poppy seed muffins, classic blueberry muffins, and lemon cream cheese muffins.
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Why You’ll Love These Muffins
Concentrated Sweet Potato Flavor. The way to get a really sweet, concentrated flavor in the cooked sweet potatoes is to bake or roast them whole in their skin. I like to drizzle each potato with about a teaspoon of olive oil, wrap them individually in foil, and then roast on a baking sheet for 1 1/2 hours at 425 degrees F. They have an almost caramelized flavor after roasting, and when cool enough, the peel just slips right off.
Tastes like Sweet Potato Casserole. If sweet potato casserole with brown sugar crumb topping is your favorite dish at Thanksgiving, you’ll fall in love with these delicious fall muffins. They’re so fluffy, soft and tender, with heaps of crumb topping, and the most wonderful flavor. You can also replace the sweet potato with canned pumpkin for pumpkin muffins.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Sweet Potatoes. Roasted in their peel, sweet potatoes become soft, melt-in-your-mouth tender, with a sweet, caramelized flavor that’s wonderful in these muffins. I go into more detail on how to choose the right sweet potatoes in my sweet potato casserole post.
- Sugar. Dark brown sugar and granulated sugar adds sweetness and moisture.
- Vegetable Oil + Whole Milk. Moisture.
- Eggs. Add structure and moisture to the muffins.
- Vanilla. Flavor.
- Flour. All-purpose flour gives the muffins structure and strength.
- Baking Soda. Leavens the batter so the muffins rise as they bake.
- Salt. I use coarse Kosher salt in all my baking, to enhance the flavors and balance the sweetness.
- Spices. A blend of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and cardamom adds warmth and depth of flavor.
Instructions
Roast the sweet potato.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Scrub the sweet potatoes, but don’t remove the peel. Wrap the potatoes in foil, place them on a baking sheet, and roast for about 1 1/2 hours, until very soft.
- Open the foil, let the potato cool, and remove the peel. Puree the potato in a food processor until smooth. Measure out 1 cup of pureed sweet potato, and let cool to room temperature.
- You can roast and puree the sweet potato up to 3 days in advance, keeping it in the refrigerator until needed. You can also freeze the puree for 3-6 months.
TIP: It’s far preferable to puree the sweet potatoes smooth in a food processor, rather than hand-mashing them. Some sweet potatoes seem to be more stringy than others, and pureeing them gets rid of all those unpleasant fibers which hand-mashing can leave behind.
Make the muffin batter.
- Preheat the oven to 400 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Lightly spray the inside of the liners and the top of the pan with nonstick baking spray.
- In a bowl, whisk together the pureed sweet potato, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract.
- Separately, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and use a spatula to stir everything together, just until moistened.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan; the cups will be quite full, nearly to the top.
Add crumb topping.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and pecans. Drizzle with the melted butter, and toss everything together with a spoon until evenly moistened. If it seems too moist, add another tablespoon of flour.
- Crumble the topping over the batter, using up all the crumbs, even if it seems like too much. Lightly press the crumbs into the batter.
Bake
- When you put the pan in the oven, turn the temperature down from 400 F to 375 F.
- Bake the muffins on the center oven rack for about 22-28 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan for several minutes, then gently lift them out to cool on a cooling rack for several minutes. Enjoy the muffins warm or at room temperature.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, canned pumpkin puree is pretty much interchangeable with pureed, roasted sweet potatoes in recipes.
Boiling the sweet potato will work, too, although roasting concentrates the flavor better and makes it sweeter.
Sure! Melted butter adds great flavor, although it tends to make baked goods a little more dense, while oil keeps them moist, light and fluffy.
Store leftover muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
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High Altitude Sweet Potato Crumb Muffins
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 cup roasted, pureed sweet potato, from 1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup whole milk
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ÂĽ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ÂĽ tsp ground ginger
- ÂĽ tsp ground cloves
- ÂĽ tsp ground nutmeg
- ÂĽ tsp ground allspice
- â…› tsp ground cardamom
Topping
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- ÂĽ cup granulated sugar
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ÂĽ cup chopped pecans, optional
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Instructions
Roasted Sweet Potato
- Preheat the oven to 425 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Scrub the sweet potatoes, but don't remove the peel. Wrap the potatoes in foil, place them on a baking sheet, and roast for about 1 1/2 hours, until very soft.
- Open the foil, let the potato cool, and remove the peel. Puree the potato in a food processor until smooth. Measure out 1 cup of pureed sweet potato, and let cool to room temperature.
- You can roast and puree the sweet potato up to 3 days in advance, keeping it in the refrigerator until needed. You can also freeze the puree for 3-6 months.
Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 400 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Lightly spray the inside of the liners and the top of the pan with nonstick baking spray.
- In a bowl, whisk together the pureed sweet potato, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract.
- Separately, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and use a spatula to stir everything together, just until moistened.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan; the cups will be quite full, nearly to the top.
Topping
- In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and pecans. Drizzle with the melted butter, and toss everything together with a spoon until evenly moistened. If it seems too moist, add another tablespoon of flour.
- Crumble the topping over the batter, using up all the crumbs, even if it seems like too much. Lightly press the crumbs into the batter.
Bake
- When you put the pan in the oven, turn the temperature down from 400 F to 375 F.
- Bake the muffins on the center oven rack for about 22-28 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan for several minutes, then gently lift them out to cool on a cooling rack for several minutes. Enjoy the muffins warm or at room temperature.
Just made these with the leftover puree I had from Thanksgiving. They are so good!
I’m so glad you loved them! They’re so similar in flavor to pumpkin muffins.
Fantastic! Made these in S. Denver this weekend during the polar vortex. Huge hit with the family.
These are amazing!! I live near Denver and struggle with finding good recipes for the altitude, so thank you for putting these into the world!
*I didn’t have milk, so I used sour cream and it worked great.